Psyche! We got you. We didn't really mean it.

Let's pretend I am a faithful Latter-Day Saint once again, just for fun.

In my youth I read several accounts, and was taught by several authority figures, that we must listen to the prophet and must trust that what he says is coming directly from the Lord Himself. It is up to us to prayerfully ask Heavenly Father if what we have heard is what we should believe, just the same as we ask Him about the truthfulness of the BoM. But the expected result will be that Yes, indeed the prophet is speaking God's Truth, just the same as the certain response that Yes, the Book of Mormon is indeed what it says it is.

It seems like leaders of the 2012 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have forgotten this, and whenever a new prophet or apostle comes into play, we are supposed to wipe our memories of the past "revelations". To quote the official spokesperson (Michael Purdy) for the LDS Church:

"For a time in the church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent...It is not known precisely why, how or when this restriction began in the church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine. The church is not bound by speculation or opinions given with limited understanding."

We have documentation of the "some" whom Purdy is referring to: Brigham Young, Joseph Fielding Smith, George Q. Cannon, Mark E. Petersen are just to name a few. These men were Prophets or Apostles, Seers, and Revelators at the time their "speculations" were offered. These men were not mere BYU Professors, speaking beyond their station. At the time they spoke about the doctrine (yes it WAS doctrine) regarding the black mark of Cain and the curse on his descendants, they were not speculating, they were explaining and enlightening.

Along comes the revelation in 1978 from President Spencer W. Kimball, where it was announced that all worthy men would be eligible for the Priesthood. Not long after that revelation, Elder Bruce R. McConkie said the following:

"Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world."

Oh, I see. Well as a faithful LDS member, I have to say that this would concern me. How can I trust what the current prophet is saying if the next one might completely contradict them and tell me to forget what the last one said? If they are just speaking merely as men and not as mouthpieces of God, how are the people to discern at the time?

There is a reason why religions use a sheep as a metaphor for the faithful followers. I'm just saying. Okay it's not fun pretending anymore--I'm glad I'm out.

Remember that one time?

So long, long ago I posted a blog entry where I announced that I had officially received my "you're no longer a momo" letter (the post is called Finding a daily LIFE). At that point in my exit from the church I was concerned mostly for my children, especially since they are growing up here in Utah County. I felt like other kids might be mean, or might shun them.

So. Here it is, almost 4 years since that post. My first-born is now 10 and in the 4th grade, and my baby is 5 and taller than all the other preschoolers. How is their life here in Ut. Co., you ask? Well.

I would say that for the most part, not being LDS hasn't directly affected them too harshly. L has friends that she plays with at school, and B fights with the other boys at preschool. I do have a concern though, and I mostly blame the COMMUNITY of Mormons for it, rather than the church itself:

Every day I hear kids outside playing and laughing and having a great time. L knows some of them from school, but none of them come over to ask her to play. During the summer all the kids (mine, plus my "step"-children) would participate in Night Games, but only if one of them got the courage to go up to the neighborhood kids and ask if they could play. Now I realize that part of the distance between the neighborhood kids and my kids could have something to do with the fact that my kids aren't here at our house all the time - they get carted back and forth between here and their dad's house. But they are here about half the time, and those kids go to school with my daughter, for crying out loud.

I have seriously contemplated taking my kids to church again, just so they can be more accepted by the neighborhood kids. I am pretty sure this is a church-related issue, because even the parents of the neighborhood kids make very little effort to be friendly (no wave of the hand from them!) towards me. They speak with Lee some, but mostly regarding church issues (his 15 yr old son does participate in church).

*sigh* Is it really worth going back to church just to have a little acceptance? Or do I need to once again peruse the exmo community for children of like-minded parents? I just don't know what to do, but it sure does bite when neither of my neighbors will say Hi to me, let alone wave. I assume it affects my children less than it does me, since they don't really know what they're missing.

I miss the community and camaraderie of being LDS. It seems that you have to BE one to get that perk, though. Whatever.

Nothing but WET

Someone had a great idea. Someone figured out that certain keywords draw consumers to purchase. This notion changed the world of marketing. "Natural", "Organic", "Pure"; these are some of the words we get bombarded with each day.

The chemical compound which consists of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule is probably the best example of what marketing can do for a product:

We are inundated with selection when we want a simple, refreshing drink of water. With merely a label we can be transported up to glacial heights or whisked away to a tropical paradise. Such a fantastical trip at such an unreasonable price tag, and sadly the reality is that we're pretty much having a drink of water. Water. WATER!

Well, I have an idea too. If we're going to monopolize on something as commonplace as water, then lets do it right. How about we give people what they REALLY want?! Now introducing, for the first time ever (that's right, you heard it here folks):

Bombarded

Being a liberal in Utah County is like being white in the Mexican supermarket on State Street, I imagine. It's like people know liberals exist, they've heard of liberals before, but it's so rare that they come out in the open that conservatives are actually surprised when they find out someone is liberal. "Someone disagrees with me? What? Lunacy."

I hear the regurgitations of Bill O'Reilly too often. Sean Hannity is a Saint around here. And what's-his-face, the guy who sobs all the time, oh yeah Glenn Beck. That guy's name sends chills up my spine.

Not that I'm confrontational, mind you. But if I hear someone say something ridiculous (mostly about homosexuals or "marriage") then I'll speak up with some sarcastic comeback. I don't bite my tongue, but I'm certainly not on the lookout for a fight.

Why has fighting always found me? Hmm...something for me to ponder on.

So, yes, the fight always seems to find me. It must be a nice thing to be able to be so open about political beliefs. Most people get nods of agreement and a pat on the back for the ideas they vocalize. But me? Liberal me (moderately liberal, by the way)? If I say something that I believe, I get jumped on. Whatever.

I'm getting sick of living here. *sigh*

My New Fave

Like a Sunshower by Journey

Girl, tell me what's wrong
Are those tears in your eyes
What's going on between us
I'm ready to listen
I don't care if it takes all night

We both said something we didn't mean
We lost our heads
Now I can't sleep
'Til you talk to me

We find the sun through the rain
Caught in a sunshower
We'll be all right, no one's to blame
After the storm, we'll shine
So rare you and me disagree
Love's like a sunshower

When you meet me, babe
Somewhere halfway, yeah

It's been way too long
Since we shared what's in our hearts
Let's say this charade is over
Ooh, we can't take for granted
How far we've come
Let's not lose each other

I know you care, 'cause you stand your ground
When we talked enough
I wanna make up
Wanna make love

We find the sun through the rain
Caught in a sunshower
We'll be alright
No one's to blame
After the storm, we'll shine
So rare you and me disagree
Love's like a sunshower

Baby, babe
Somewhere we'll find
We won't regret
We won't forget
Rainbows wait for you and me
Girl, we're caught in a sunshower

When we've talked enough
Can we make up
Can we make love, ooh
Yeah

Unexpected Funny

They lost me at "you'll know tonight".

My Homework Assignment

Last year in April, I was at my niece and nephew's baptism, and at the end their bishop challenged everyone to go home and write about the feelings they felt during the service (meeting? who knows the lingo anymore...). It was a baptism of 4 children, my niece and nephew (twins), and two other kids in their ward that were unrelated to each other.

So...I'm doing my homework:

My first feeling during the service was trepidation. Lee and I took my unbaptized 8 yr. old daughter with us, and I was worried that I'd hear endless whining from her about wanting to be just like the other kids. But that never happened! I've told her that when she's 18 she can study all about it and decide if it's something that she wants for herself. The trepidation turned into relief when I never heard anything from her about wanting to be baptized.

Then I felt a bit of nausea (but technically that's a sensation, not a feeling), when one of the other kids' grandmother spoke from the pulpit. She commented about when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were "thick in the translation of the Book of Mormon" and working on 3 Nephi 11. This is a place in the scripture that talks about baptism 40+ times. She related how she "knows in her heart that Joseph and Oliver looked up at each other and realized that they too needed to be baptized". I think the underlying feeling behind my nausea was utter confusion at the words she used. I'd like to reword her thoughts in my own words, just to make it less confusing. Enjoy:

A long time ago, in a setting where no witnesses were present, and no third party documentation was taking place, legend says that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery may have had a discussion when they were allegedly depicting certain characters off ancient hand-made plates of gold, and they called the certain characters 3 Nephi chapter 11. Some people feel that an unseen all-powerful being gave them a strange tool to depict the foreign characters, though certainly this cannot be proved since we do not have any evidence of its existence. At that time, in that chapter, apparently the tool was depicting the word "baptism" a lot.

One might assume that the excessive usage of the word "baptism" was the reason for the alleged discussion between the two men about their own baptisms.

*******

It's almost been a year since then. Now my daughter is 9 years old. This past Sunday we went to another church meeting, because Lee's new granddaughter was getting "A Name & A Blessing" (which is kind of similar to a christening in other religions). It's such a different experience to sit in a congregation among Mormons, not believing anything that they say. Different from how I used to be, that is. This time I tried to take something away from the meeting, but there wasn't much for me to pull from. Everything was "pay tithing", "listen to the spirit (even when you're not sure why)", and some scripture references from the book of Paul. I wanted something more, something like "Do unto others what you'd have others do unto you", or something else edifying beyond religion.

We left that meeting and apparently my daughter wants to get baptized. Here we go! She's got 9 years left under her parent's rules, and our rule is "Not before you're 18". We'll see what happens I guess...

Starting Out Right (or... SOR)

I've got to get healthy. Yesterday I envisioned myself being with other people, in a bikini, and feeling completely comfortable. What a rush! What would that really be like?!? I want to find out.

My current goals:

1) eat more nutritious food, and less crap. On that note, this morning I brought vanilla yogurt, granola and a sliced-up banana for breakfast. It should've been delicious, but the yogurt made it sort of sour. Plus my tummy doesn't do that well with milk products anymore, so I started to feel yucky. What a disappointment!!

2) significantly increase my activity level. I've decided that, until I purchase the Wii Fit, I'll play Wii Boxing every day because I usually work up a good sweat playing that game. Plus, that will develop the habit of using the Wii every day, which I'll need in order to make the Wii Fit work best for me. I'd like to start walking, but it's f-ing cold outside and I don't want to pay to use an indoor track somewhere. So walking will start in a couple months.

3) find some purpose in life. Right now I can settle for blogging. But eventually it will be something more useful, such as building school houses in Costa Rica. Mostly I want to go to Costa Rica to see my friends' awesome house that they're building there. But, in all seriousness, I do want to leave an impact on this world before I have to leave it!

Okay so those are the 3 things that I'm going to keep repeating over and over in my brain.

Summer, defined in a picture

Who Knew?

When it was crystal clear that my marriage wouldn't work for either of us anymore, I took decisive action. I still wonder to myself, "If I had known how things would play out, would I still have handled the situation the way I did?" The answer is obvious to me. The answer is no. But I can't change history.

The way I handled things hurt people. The way I handled things was abrupt (for those on the outside looking in). I was selfish and arrogant. For those in close proximity, they pitied how trapped we both were, but they could also see us making mistake after mistake. For those a little further removed, they formed their opinions regarding what they knew of the situation and have stuck by those opinions to this day.

Would I have made the same choices if I knew it meant losing friends? Hindsight is definitely 20/20, because I see things from a much different vantage point now. I see friendships that weren't what I thought they were. In my own feisty, need-to-have-control-at-all-times way, I was very naive to others' motives and intents.

Here are some points that need addressing:

* For most of the 10+ years spent together, we had been fooling ourselves. Neither of us had the courage to admit it though.

* My marriage was over (even if only the two of us knew it) before I--quite accidentally--fell in love with another man.

* Most of the pain and hurt I inflicted wasn't intentional. I cannot excuse it, because I am the perpetrator. I am good at justifying things in my mind, and that skill was put into practice a LOT a couple of years ago. But I never set out to hurt anyone. I'm not cruel or vicious; but I am an idiot that gets to live with the consequences of her stupid actions.

* I don't love drama. People always think that I love drama. I do love fairy tales, and THAT is big problem for me. But I don't love drama whatsoever; in fact, quite the opposite, I prefer simplicity.

It's been 2 years since our marriage was crumbling around our feet. We're finally finding balance and hopefully we'll each find our individual bliss. We are parents and friends, and we wish each other the best. The rest, I pray, is water under the bridge now.

Days 10 +

Hey my cut-back-on-caffeine has been going pretty well still. I have let myself drink a couple DDP's here and there, but mostly I've been sticking to water. I still poop out during the late afternoon sometimes, but I've figured out that it only happens when I wake up early that morning (i.e. for work).

Confession #1: I've tried out Caffeine-Free Diet Dr. Pepper. I'm totally ashamed to have wasted my time with it. Why would anyone choose to drink carbonated brown water with aspartame and 35 mg of sodium? It's beyond me. But oh well.

Confession #2: This past week I got a new laptop. I work for HP, so I decided to see what the employee discount was like. I found a pretty good deal, and it's better than anything I have at the moment. This is my first ever computer. MY first ever computer. I'm so in love, it's sick.

Confession #3: I've decided what I want to do with my life. I'm not looking for it to happen this second, but, ultimately, I think I have found the direction I'd like to go. I want to be a bee-keeper. :) No, I'm not crazy. For so many reasons it's the perfect profession for me!! More about this topic to come at a later date.

Day 8 and Day 9

ONE WEEK! I felt great again yesterday. We had some work friends over for a BBQ, and I felt awake and alert the whole time. It was another caffeine-free day, so taking that into consideration, I'm pretty impressed with how it has gone.

Lee has decided he'll give up caffeine too. It's more fun when you have a "buddy" to go through life-changes with. :) He's participating in The Biggest Loser at his work, so I'm going to be his "buddy" through that.

Day 9:

I'm caffeine-free today, but I'm super tired. I think I need to make sure I get a good night's sleep tonight. Hooray for the weekend!

Day 7

Well. It wasn't a caffeine-free day (took a couple of swigs with lunch!), but it was a milestone in its own right.

Normally in the afternoon I'm a zombie. I'm either falling asleep at my desk or I crash as soon as I get home. But yesterday was different. I felt pretty good throughout the afternoon! When I left work, I felt like I could still be awake at home, so I folded laundry and got a few things taken care of. I did have a pretty low point in the early evening, but I never laid down nor fell asleep. After spending some time on the couch watching a movie, I actually felt a little bit re-energized. I did more cleaning and got a few more things done before I decided it was time for bed.

I was pretty darn happy about it, let me just say! I'm gradually feeling some progress, and that's a necessity if I'm going to keep this up.

Day 6

HOLY CRAVING. I slept 25 minutes late this morning, and while I was getting ready for work an intense craving for DDP hit me. I couldn't shake it! I ate some toast, a yogurt and banana, and STILL the craving was there.

It's almost lunchtime now, and I'm not feeling so desperate. I've been sipping water all morning (side note: Another reason I don't like water is that if I drank as much as I'm "supposed to", I'd be peeing every 30 minutes, all day long! Sheesh!).

It may be really lame to some people that I am only blogging mundane things. Well, I've had bloggers-block for quite some time now, so this is a remarkable accomplishment, in my opinion. Hopefully it will lead me into more profound entries sometime soon. It will help that I just got myself a laptop. :) We'll see!

Days 3, 4 and 5

(Over the weekend and yesterday)

The weekend wasn't too bad. Lee and I were without children, and whenever I'm only responsible for myself I have an easier time practicing restraint. Even though Lee got himself a fountain drink from the gas station (I usually get one too!), I limited my caffeine intake to only a couple of swigs to help wash food down. Aside from feeling lazy and energy-less most of the weekend, it wasn't too bad.

Monday was pretty good too. I sipped a Fresca for most of the day, and just drank water with lunch. You have to understand that I am not a Water Person. Yuck! It has no flavor and usually just makes me feel water-logged and gross. So choosing water is kind of a big deal for me. Monday was my first caffeine-free day, and that's a pretty good milestone!

p.s. I think Water People usually have a holier-than-thou attitude, which is why I like to give Them the respect They're due.

Day 2

I'm stuffed on Wingers, but didn't eat too poorly there. A bunch of popcorn, a few fries, then a salad and a half-sandwich (neither of which I finished).

I've consumed a 1/2 can of Diet Dr. Pepper today. Those who know me know I love Love LOVE Diet Dr. Pepper. My fave! So only drinking a 1/2 can is kind of a big deal.

Still feeling positive and optimistic. I want a life change. I want to be able to stay awake without the use of caffeine, so that's the goal.

Day 1

Read an article called The Corporate Athlete. Decided that today I would keep energy levels up without the use of caffeine. Also, will try to eat many small healthy meals, instead of the crap that I normally find to eat.

Heavy Petting

Remember when you got the YM/YW pamphlet that said you shouldn't participate in "heavy petting"? Hearing that phrase makes me laugh my guts out. Heavy Petting. It's kind of ambiguous, so I decided to look it up on dictionary.com. Here's what I learned:

v. pet·ted, pet·ting, pets v. tr. To stroke or caress gently; pat. v. intr. Informal To make love by fondling and caressing.

To make love?!? Holy crap! So what the hell does HEAVY petting insinuate? Ramming? If merely petting crosses the chastity line, I think a more direct way of saying it would be "Thou Shalt Only Engage in Petting With Thine Spouse; and, If Married, Only Heavily Pet if Both Participants are Down With That Kind of Thing".

By the way, I'm actively rewriting the 10 commandments, loosely based off of George Carlin's book "When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?" Funny stuff. Maybe I'll just post his version instead.

Happy Mother's Day!

What better time is there to blog? It's early in the morning and I can hear hustle and bustle downstairs in the kitchen. I'm under strict orders to not leave the bed. Whatever can be happening? ;)

I have some pictures that crack me up, so I think I'll post them. My 3 yr. old son has been prone to falling asleep lately, wherever he might be at the time.

At the top of the stairs, outside the bedroom...

Dinnertime at Winger's...

Isn't that fun? You just never know when you might open a door and find him at your feet, out cold.

He's also done very well at his potty-training lately (snaps to his dad!). He can't differentiate between the words "pee-pee" and "poopie". I laugh every time he approaches me, visibly excited, and says, "Mommy! I just went brown stuff!" What can I say? Maybe he'll be a color-freak, like I am.

Sometimes I worry that his big sister is his best friend. I know that it's really a good thing and that they'll be close when they're grown-ups. So usually my worries don't run too deep. But then I see something like this:

Playing dress-up!

Oh well, kids will be kids. They sure look pretty, don't they? :)

The reason why I can't quit my job. EVER.

The system at work just went down, so what better use of my time is there than to BLOG??

I moved desks at work. It's a perk. It's kind of perky. Perkish. I enjoy not staring at a wall anymore. There are too many walls in my life at the time being, so it's a refreshing change to have a nice vantage point of the office. I wasn't too sure about it, until the first day, mid-afternoon, when I beheld this on my white board:

Our new building has a lot of windows. When I saw this prism right here beside me, I knew I loved my new desk. Take note of this awesome picture that has a heart-shaped reflection on the white board. Kismet! Serenity? Karma? DESTINY! :)